Jul 2010 – Mar 2014
This project has explored the importance of political mobilization and organization for the realization of the human rights and for the long-term peaceful resettlement of internally displaced women in Colombia. Colombia is a constitutional democracy with a strong administrative state and a steadily growing economy, but is characterized by protracted conflict that has resulted in massive displacement. However, among the numerous grassroots organizations asking the Constitutional Court for relief there is a vigorous presence of internally displaced people. Before our project, this phenomenon has been little studied.
Through a socio-legal multi-methods approach, the project has collected and analyzed a large dataset on internally displaced women's organizations across Colombia. The findings from the project has been disseminated to displaced communities, grassroots NGOs, bureaucrats, judges, and politicians in Colombia, international organizations, Colombian and international scholars (humanitarian, refugee studies and international legal feminist scholars in particular) and to the Norwegian public. Three findings are particularly important.
First, the literature on evidence-based action in humanitarian crises commonly focuses on how humanitarian actors can produce better knowledge and thus improve programming. Yet, there is little recorded experience of, or concern about, how the beneficiaries of humanitarian relief can produce and use knowledge of their predicament. Our case study of the Liga de Mujeres Desplazadas showed the Liga to proactively employ research-generated data to advance its own agenda in its interactions with donor bodies and the government. Our research can help policymakers and humanitarian actors understand more about beneficiaries use of participatory research to advance their own ends in the legal and political spaces created around humanitarian crisis, but also how their agency is limited by poverty, violence, and local power dynamics.
Second, the project has tried to make sense of the use of legal claims and tactics under precarious conditions of internal displacement and armed conflict that characterize Colombia. To that end, the project has developed a theory of legal mobilization in violent context that takes insecurity into account by adapting concepts commonly used to explain collective action: frames, resources, and political opportunities. This theory has the potential to be a major contribution to socio-legal scholarship, which is increasingly focused on legal mobilization outside liberal democracies.
Third, the growing literature on gender in armed conflict, as well as the debates over post- conflict reparations for women focuses on the prevalence and harms of sexual violence. While this focus has recently been critiqued, there are few articulations of other types of gendered injuries. Our project contributes to bridging this knowledge gap by examining political insecurity as a specifically gendered harm. It reflects on the concrete circumstances of insecurity, on the relevance of traditional gender roles in the constitution of insecurity, and on the challenges for court-ordered remedies. Looking towards a Colombian peace agreement we find that this widening of the scope of attention also invites complex reflection on the possibility of transformative reparations in post-conflict situations.
The second issue in 2017 the PRIO Gender, Peace and Security Update is now out.
The lead story in this issue includes an interview with researchers Christine Amisi (ICART) and Gudrun Østby (PRIO) about their research on support programmes for survivors of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The lead story in this issue of the GPS Update is an interview with Julieta Lemaitre, Associate Professor of Law at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá and PRIO Global Fellow, about a project studying the political and legal mobilisation of women’s organisations in Colombia. In this issue you can also read about another PRIO Global Fellow, Heidi Hudson, Professor of International Relations and Director of the Centre for Africa Studies at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa, who visited PRIO during the first week of June. As usual, the GPS Update also gives you an update on relevant seminars, reports and policy briefs, as well as a list of publications which might be of interest to our readership.
In the project “The Significance of Political Organization and International Law for Displaced Women in Colombia: A Socio-legal study of Liga De Mujeres, Julieta Lemaitre (Associate Professor of Law at Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, PRIO Global Fellow and Robina Foundation Visiting Human Rights Fellow, Yale Law School), Kristin Bergtora Sandvik (Senior Researcher at PRIO and Director of the Norwegian Centre for Humanitarian Studies) and a team of graduate students have explored the importance of political mobilization and organization for the protection of the human security of internally displaced women in the period 2010-2013.
Kristin Bergtora Sandvik welcomed as contributor to the IntLawGrrls blog.
Journal Article in Stability: International Journal of Security and Development
Newsletter
Book Chapter in The Public Law of Gender from the Local to the Global
Journal Article in Social & Legal Studies
Popular Article in IntLawGrrls
Popular Article in Reliefweb
Book Chapter in International Law and Post-Conflict Reconstruction Policy
Conference Paper
Conference Paper
Popular Article in IntLawGrrls
Journal Article in Law & Society Review
Journal Article in Feminist Legal Studies
Report - Other
Report - Other
Report - Other
Report - Other
Journal Article in Disasters
Conference Paper
Conference Paper